Blockbuster OnDemand coming to a Blu-ray player near you

Blockbuster will start integrating its OnDemand film download-to-rent service into Blu-ray players from early next year, the firm’s Chairman has revealed.

The company unveiled a set-top box for its OnDemand rental service last week, but company Chairman Jim Keyes has since told website E-Commerce Times that “by the first quarter of next year” it will put “the same capability into a Blu-ray player”.

Essentially, if you’re an HD hungry film fan then you’ll be able to rent HD quality films from Blockbuster directly through your Blu-ray Disc machine. Keyes didn’t reveal whether it’ll launch its own Blu-ray player or if it’ll build the service into another manufacturer’s machine.

It’s worth noting that Blockbuster won’t be the first company to integrate access to an HD movie rental service into a Blu-ray player. Samsung announced in October that its BD-P2500 and BD-P2550 Blu-ray models can now stream movies from Netflix.

Keyes admitted that bandwidth could prove a problem for customers, but claimed that it’s possible do download HD content “if you’re willing to wait the extra download time”.